Burn (Story of CI #3)

by Rachel Moschell

  Cail scowled into the darkness as she thought about how Marquez had interrogated Wara in the middle of the night and then left her for dead. She flipped open her cell to shed a little light across their room

  Cail really wished she had a weapon here. Of course she hadn't been able to travel with one, since airport security wasn't a fan of letting people like her, who supposedly worked with an NGO, pack guns in their luggage. Taking a pistol with her to the bathroom down the hall would probably be overkill, even though the hallway was sure to be dark as sin. Cail did decide to bring along her Swiss army knife, in case the freak who had tracked Wara made an appearance, though.

  Just in case.

  The guy had hunted Wara down and injected her with poison he made himself, for heaven's sake. Lázaro Marquez and Wara had dated years back, but he didn’t even remember her. Something bad had happened to seriously derange this guy, and that made Cail nervous.

  She shook off a chill and crossed the room carefully in the dark. Even though her cell could light the way, there was no point in taking it and risking getting mugged. Or having the phone fall down into the recesses of the squatty potty.

  The key to Cail’s room was half the length of her hand, some dusky ancient metal, smooth under her fingers. She locked the door carefully and tiptoed down the hall, fighting the creeps. Her boots actually squished as they navigated the grimy tiles. The faintest bit of lavender moonlight filtered into the hall through a few open windows high up near the ceiling. Several men were sprawled on the unbelievably dirty floor, wrapped up in their scratchy wool djellaba robes with pointy hoods, snoring away.

  There must have been a shortage of rooms tonight at this lovely establishment.

  Cail again wished for her pistol.

  One good thing, though, was that all this dirtiness and grime was not too much for her to handle. Yes, Cail had obsessive compulsive disorder, diagnosed when she was arrived at the ripe old age of twenty. But dirt and germs weren’t what she obsessed about, so for tonight, Cail would probably be doing just fine.

  This totally wasn't the worst place she had stayed at. She just had to stay alert. But when you were jet-lagged at three a.m., staying alert was always challenging.

  Cail reached the cave-like entryway to the bathrooms, which she and Wara had visited earlier. She shuddered and creaked open the wooden door to one of the stalls, a squatty potty affair coated in grime. She did what she had come for quickly and scurried back towards her room as fast as her long legs could take her.

  Safely inside her room again, Cail made sure to tiptoe over to her bed. She could barely make out Wara’s shadowy figure on the bed, still sleeping like a baby. It would stink if Wara woke up only to find she also had to make a middle-of-the-night trip to the facilities.

  Cail grinned and kicked off her boots. She slipped out of her hoodie and hung it on the bedpost, then climbed back into bed in her purple tank top and yoga pants.

  Her shoulder collided with a warm body.

  Cail shrieked, then clamped her jaw shut to cut off the sound. She was out of the bed in a second, already grabbing her knife from her pocket and flipping it open, ready to fight.

  Was it him?

  Marquez had found them here, at the hostel in Morocco.

  A flurry of covers split the darkness while Cail went for the light switch near the doorway. From what she knew, this guy was good, and if she was going to have a chance at taking him down she needed to see. Moving towards the light switch also put her into position to defend Wara.

  As Cail slapped at the light, she realized that Wara hadn't been moving when she entered the room. Would the intruder just be waiting in Cail's bed, without first having done something to Wara?

  Cail felt her knees start to shake.

  The dirty bulb overhead flashed three times like a strobe light, trying to get up the juice to flood their room with light. Cail saw a long guy but he wasn't coming towards her with a weapon. He was huddled against the wall on the bed, blue eyes wide with shock, mouth hanging open. He wasn't scarred like Lázaro Marquez would have been. This guy's skin was very light and his espresso hair was cropped short. He had a trendy little goatee and was wearing bright green Abercrombie sweat pants and a black long-sleeved shirt.

  He looked horrified.

  Cail's world stopped.

  She had realized by now that the large bump on the bed where Wara should have been was just an orange hiking backpack. None of her stuff was here. She couldn't stop blinking from the sudden onrush of light and the awful realization that this place where she was standing, pointing a knife at the guy in the bed that was supposed to be hers, was not her room.

  She was in the wrong room.

  And she was here with Jonah.

  “You can have all my money,” Jonah was babbling. "Just take it. That little dresser thing there. Top drawer. Open it and take it all. I swear everything's in there." Jonah Jones was still gawking at her from the unmade bed, one leg propped up into the air and his long fingers wrapped nervously around it. "Just please," he said, "if you could leave me the credit cards? We are all the way in Morocco, after all, and it would really suck to be stranded over here."

  Cail felt the heat rush up her legs like a volcano, all the way from the frozen concrete floor to her face. The strands of her short blonde hair sizzled against her flaming cheeks.

  Had she been knifed in the hall by one of those guys in the pointy hoods? Because this must be hell.

  The strength left Cail's knees and she wobbled a shaky step forward, then stumbled, sending the point of her knife another inch closer to Jonah.

  Jonah gasped and defensively yanked the covers up to his chin. "Ok, take the credit cards," he said. "It's fine. I'll make do."

  This might be hell, but Cail was slowly realizing that this was a hell that was very real. She felt the oxygen working its way back into her brain like sludge. If she tried really hard, she would be able to breathe again.

  Fighting the urge to collapse on the floor and puke her guts out, Cail closed and opened her eyes slowly, then clicked the army knife closed, slid it back in her pocket.

  And that's when he recognized her.

  "Oh my gosh." Jonah's blue eyes popped even wider and he dropped the thick covers, reached slowly for glasses on the table by his bed. He placed the black trendy glasses on his nose, still gawking. "Cail?"

  Cail tried to open her mouth, heard her tongue make a sucking noise as it separated from the bone-dry roof of her mouth. She forced herself to swallow, to try to speak.

  She was here.

  This was really happening.

  And she had to say something.

  "I am so sorry," she said. Stupidest explanation ever. "I...I must have gone in the wrong room. I think mine is next door." She went for the key in her pocket, ignoring how the guy on the bed flinched.

  Jonah still thought she was going to knife him.

  Cail wanted to cry. After fourteen years, she ran into Jonah again. She barged into his room in the night and climbed into bed next to him and then pulled a knife on him.

  She fought back the tears and examined the little number on her key. It was mostly rubbed away, but she remembered it said six. Or had it been eight?

  Oh God, she had really gone into the wrong room.

  "I…don't know how this key could even open the wrong door." Cail forced herself to meet Jonah's eyes with a little dignity. "I got messed up. Mine is supposed to be eight. This is six, huh?"

  "Yeah." Jonah bobbed his head, still quite weirded out. "I…you're staying here? You’re Cail Lamontagne, right?"

  Still lightheaded, Cail shoved the key back in the pocket of her yoga pants, realizing that Jonah still recognized her after so many years. An image shimmered through her mind of her and Jonah in the days when they used to be friends. Cail would have been wearing a roomy button-down blouse with a floor-length jean skirt and tennis shoes with socks. Her hair was down to her butt. There was a little gold cross necklace on a delicate chain, and
Cail never went anywhere without it.

  She had checked up on Jonah secretly over the years, through social networking places like Facebook. She knew it was probably stalking, but she had to know how badly she had messed him up. So she knew what Jonah looked like these days, and he hadn’t really changed that much. He had the goatee and the cooler glasses going on, along with an always-stylish wardrobe.

  But now Jonah recognized her, standing here in Morocco, wearing a tank top and hot pink sweat pants. Her hair was spiky and short, she sported a very obvious rose tattoo on the back of her neck, and she was holding him up at knifepoint.

  Well, maybe the knife was what clued him in.

  Maybe he dreamed about her every night, and maybe this was what happened in his dreams. Maybe Jonah Jones' worst nightmares were about Cail.

  The emotions of years ago threatened to crush her, but she couldn't let them. She was a different Cail now, and she was not going to let the past steal her dignity.

  Again.

  "Yeah, it's me," she said, and even allowed herself the smallest hint of a smile. A sad smile, but she threw it his way and crossed her arms across her chest, really wishing her tank top was a little more substantial. "I'm staying here for work. I am so sorry…I really just got mixed up with the room numbers. This is so weird."

  Jonah relaxed his shoulders and scooted forward to the edge of his bed, finally seeming to realize he wasn't about to die.

  "It is totally weird," he grinned. "Of all the coincidences! I'm here for work too." And then Jonah did something that cut across the past fourteen years, tied them up in a neat little package and hurled them out the window.

  Jonah Jones stood up from the bed, grinned, and folded Cail into his arms for a hug. One of those loose, back-patting hugs that said, "Hey, good to see you!" Cail just hung there, slack with disbelief.

  Jonah Jones was hugging her?

  Jonah Jones was hugging her.

  She was not going to cry. She leaned into his bony shoulder and swallowed compulsively. Cail was only a few inches shorter than Jonah's six foot two, and when he let her go she was looking right into his eyes behind those cool black glasses. He was smiling at her like some kind of long-lost friend and Cail's universe bucked and wrinkled in violent upheaval.

  She remembered when they were seventeen, and Jonah showed up at church back in Nebraska with the braces that gave him that neat white smile. He was humiliated and didn't want to talk to anyone, but of course his parents made him come to church anyway. Cail had found him behind the church sulking and told him shyly that she thought he looked good with the braces. Standing in front of him now in the hostel, she saw again how his eyes had lit up as he grinned and said thanks, braces glinting in the sun.

  "Listen," Grown-up, Cool Jonah was saying. "In a few days I have to leave Fez to head back to where I work. I’m just on a couple of vacation days. But it would be awesome to catch up."

  "Oh.” Cail’s tongue did not want to cooperate in this effort at friendly conversation. “Well. I’m getting a new assignment in a few days, but the headquarters of my organization is close to here. In Ifrane.”

  "You're a missionary?” His face told her that was what he expected.

  "Uh, no," she drew out the word. What she wanted to say but couldn't: I'm a really good sniper. I work undercover around the world, Jonah.

  "I work with an NGO," she said instead. "Called CI. We’re teachers, volunteers, stuff like that. Our base is here in Morocco."

  Jonah's eyes widened with surprise. "Oh, cool. Well I work with a company that digitalizes old manuscripts. It's a really good business. International groups pay big money for it. Listen, give me your cell number and let's see if we can get together before I have to head back to the city where I'm working."

  Cail breathed deeply as Jonah punched her number into an expensive looking IPhone with a shiny blue case.

  He looked really successful, the kind of guy who had a great life and made lots of money.

  She should be thrilled that she hadn't scarred him for life. And that he had hugged her instead of knifing her back.

  "Anyhow," Jonah continued as he placed his phone back onto the bedside table, "I'm also getting married. In a couple months. Maybe my family told you?"

  The fact that Jonah thought Cail still talked with his family stunned her. "Uh, no. I didn't know. That's…great."

  "Yeah, my fiancée's from Puerto Rico. She's a realtor in Orlando, and she's really hot." Jonah was grinning.

  I'm sure she is.

  "So, you'd better be careful," Jonah was continuing, "on your way back to your room. This place is a dump. I had a reservation at the Holiday Inn but they gave my room away. Dropped me off at this place instead. Can you believe it? Tomorrow I will definitely be complaining."

  Cail stumbled back towards her room after saying goodnight to Jonah, hearing with disbelief his promise to call her before he headed out of the country for work.

  She should be happy for him, a successful job and getting married to a gorgeous girl. He was doing well, enjoying life.

  She buried herself under the covers and scrubbed at her wet eyes until morning.

  When Cail cracked her eyes open to daylight, she found Wara propped up on a pillow reading a book on her Kindle, bare feet sticking out of the sheets. Cail felt like she might go crazy if she didn’t tell Wara what happened last night, but she just couldn’t. None of her present friends knew about Jonah, except Lalo and Rupert.

  Was Jonah Jones still in the room next to hers? Or had he gotten up at first light to hightail it out of this place, shaking the dust off his feet and trying to forget the nightmare of Cail Lamontagne?

  Cail’s mouth felt like sandpaper and she drained a bottle of water from her bedside table, then started to check messages on her phone. Anything to take her mind off last night. It was now 8:42. Rupert was going to pick them up at ten in his Land Cruiser and take them to headquarters, a short drive outside of Fez into the mountains. Cail signed into Facebook to see what stupid quotes and inane animal pictures people had been posting.

  That is how desperate she was to forget Jonah.

  There was an actual message in her inbox, and Cail clicked on it, squinting at the tiny screen. Her heart stalled as she saw it was from Hannah Grace Jones, who she hadn't been in contact with for ages and was definitely not one of her Facebook friends. The message wasn't very long.

  Cail Chastity,

  I talked with Jonah this morning. He said you are in Morocco. Are you following him? Stay away from my brother, you crazy witch. I will call whoever I have to call. Do you understand? Stay away from him.

  And that was it.

  She had already fought crying all night. Cail had no tears left.

  But inside she was dying.

  Soulless Eyes

  FEZ FLASHED BY OUTSIDE THE WINDOW, smoky and star-lit and tinted with silvery gray. Wara pressed her forehead against the backseat glass of Rupert's Land Cruiser, taking in the crowded streets. Men leaned against white-washed pillars from another age, wearing pointy-hooded djellaba robes and munching on skewers of barbequed meat.

  This city was ancient. Cail's passenger-side window was open, and the night air that rushed past Wara's cheek was cool and soaked in spices. Cail was staring out her window, eyes vacant, white and gold baseball cap pulled down low over her face. It took a lot to upset Cail, but she had been in another world since the embarrassing thing that happened with her old friend in the hostel yesterday.

  Wara had never known Cail to get so embarrassed over anything. Cail hadn’t even wanted to talk about it at all, but finally snapped out the bare-bones of the story.

  Now Wara was really wondering who this Jonah guy was. But one look at Cail's wary eyes was enough warning to leave it alone, so Wara just stuffed her curiosity.

  Wara had enough stressful things of her own to think about.

  Lázaro tried to kill her.

  He didn't remember who he was.

  She closed her eyes slowly
, trying to steady herself in the coolness of the glass windowpane. The Land Cruiser's tires slowed their whine as the vehicle turned out of the city and onto the smoother highway that led to the airport.

  "My app says the flight's on time," Cail clipped from the front seat. Wara popped her eyes open. Cail had turned her ghostly stare from the window and was tapping at her phone. "He should have already landed. It’ll take him a while to get through customs, though. They always just have one or two people stamping passports for the whole freaking planeload of people arriving."

  Wara slowly let out a breath and glanced down at her faded Rock and Republic jeans, hoping no one would notice how stinking nervous she was here in the backseat. She'd been way too jittery getting dressed, and really, really annoyed to realize that fact. She finally just threw on a black shirt dress with the jeans, and her favorite sandals with little white shells around the ankles. Fez at night was still hot and muggy, so she'd pulled her shoulder-length hair back into a ponytail, clipped a few beaded pins from a craft market in Rabat at the sides. Her hair was now back to her original color, espresso brown, and she had it cut with messy bangs on one side.

  Before going to Rabat, she’d finally got laser eye surgery, and it was super cool to not have glasses anymore. She still had the gold star nose ring, though. Wara loved the nose ring, and it was probably gonna stay for a very long time.

  They pulled into the airport parking lot, and Wara realized she was rubbing a chipped nail against her jeans, trying to smooth out the jagged edge somehow before getting to the airport.

  This was ridiculous.

  But it had been four months. Four whole months since she had seen him.

  Alejo was here, probably sitting on the ground at the Fez airport right this moment. He came all the way from assignment in Mali to keep her safe from the crazy guy who wanted to kill her.

  And Alejo wasn’t just some guy she really liked and thought was cute. He’d gone into one of the worst prisons in the world to save her last year in Iran. There was no way she could ever forget that.